


Something More

by petyrbaaaeeelish



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Adolescence, Alternate Universe - Student/Teacher, Angst, Coping, F/M, Fluff, Grief, Modern AU, One Shot, Real life situation, Slow Burn, Teacher-Student Relationship, Tear Jerker, Tragedy, but a really good read, teenage years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 00:19:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,300
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17415353
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/petyrbaaaeeelish/pseuds/petyrbaaaeeelish
Summary: For the five years Sansa knows Mr. Baelish their relationship continually changes, and it isn't till his tragic end that she realizes how much he really means to her.





	Something More

**Author's Note:**

> Let me start off by saying ninety-percent of this story is based on my own life. Its based on a relationship I had with a teacher, and only the names have been changed for obvious reasons. Please respect that fact when you read or comment down below, since this is still a sensitive subject matter for me.
> 
> Some of Petyr's characteristics and back-story has been changed slightly. You will find he has a moral compass, and rather upstanding in comparison to the other representations I have used in other fics. Sansa is morally upstanding as well, and a bit of a late bloomer in certain things so you will understand why there is no smut. That being said, there is a lot of angst and fluff so I hope you enjoy this read.
> 
> \- petyrbaaaeeelish

The floor felt cold on my bare feet. Pressing my heels into my lean form, I tucked my head into the small gap where I could lay my aching head into the hardness of my knees. My cheeks were still drenched with tears and I did my best to cover up the sniffles that escaped me now and then. My chest felt raw from emotion, this small moment of weakness was mine alone to feel. I had to hide the truth, the part of me that felt like my world had been torn apart from the news.

There was a creaking above my head, the carpeted floor boards creaking where my parents were walking around their room. It was late and I should have been in bed long ago, but I preferred the silent kitchen with the large window that stretched from ceiling to floor which showed the perfectness of a cool summer night with the stars blinding white light burrowing itself into the pitch-black sky. _I wonder where he is now…_

Memories came flooding over me, reminding me of days not so long ago where I felt peace with a man who found a way to attach himself to my heart forever.

* * *

I could see the school courtyard where I stood, a grey pavement stretched out to show an area where students could play basketball and beyond that was a field for other sports. There was a time where I trained for flag-football in grade ten, and years later I was a part of the Falcon’s soccer team before I had an injury that took me out of sports for good. The sun’s rays fell on my cool white pallor skin, but I knew the warmth in my heart wasn’t coming from the sun alone; a creaking in the front of the room could be heard as Mr. Baelish leaned forward on the plastic seat. He rubbed the side of his temple tiredly, as he tried to come up with something feasible to say. It had been like this for some minutes, as he held up his head with one of his hands to keep his head from falling from exhaustion. It was the last few days of school, and being in my grade twelve year it would be the final time I would be in his classroom alone. Mr. Baelish uncapped his pen and scrawled across the year book, probably inspired with some thought that was different from all the other teacher’s good wishes I had acquired at school today.

“Sansa,” he called out in his usual low tenor, and waited for me to approach his table with those penetrating green eyes of his. He held out the open yearbook, but I closed it before I could take a peak at what he had wrote.

“Thank you, Mr. Baelish.”

He nodded his head softly, undoubtedly feeling the same level of despair that I was currently feeling. He sat there in his chair with an emptiness about him, as if his mind was spinning with all different thoughts that distracted him from the present moment.

“I can’t believe this is the last time,” I confessed in a weak voice, while I pushed the year book into the pit of my chest. “But I will try and see you again on the last day.”

A small smile cracked his lips, pleased that there would be one last hope. We stood there silently, just looking at one another, matching the eerie silence that hushed across the entire second floor now that school was officially done for the day. “Thank you, Sansa,” broke a strange sounding voice, and then he slowly raised himself from his seat. He was dressed in the same apparel as usual, a finely pressed dress shirt that he tucked into his trousers with the same brown leather belt he always wore. His digital watch was silent for once, not going off like it normally did to signal the ten minutes that were left for each of class. Mr. Baelish peered at me from his glasses, while being a fraction taller than myself once he was finally standing on his own two feet.

“I’m going to visit you,” I promised him. “You’ll see me again.”

“You will?”

“Yes.”

He wore a smug, hardly believing a student that left high school would ever want to come back. _How wrong he is,_ I thought, as I lifted my chin a fraction higher. “I have to tell you about college.”

“Yes, I would like to hear about that.”

“I hope I like it,” I deliberated aloud. “My mom says I will get a good job with it. Besides, I have family connections in the legal industry. My brother works at the court office downtown, and my uncle is already a paralegal.”

“You’re smart,” he noted, as he leaned himself against his desk. “You can do anything you want.”

“I know.”

He peered at me through his glasses with a look of skepticism. I knew what he was thinking, I could read his thoughts without him ever mentioning a word. _Then why are you going to school for something you don’t like?_

“You can go to university.”

“I don’t have the money for that!” I implored with a look of destitution. “My family never saved up a penny for it.”

“You can take out a loan."

“Do you know how long it will take to pay it all back?”

Mr. Baelish smiled at me, and then reached behind him to gather the last of his things. “You know I have a lot of siblings,” he remarked, and waited for me to nod my head in ascension. “Five brother and sisters,” he added, while he took a good handle over his cloth briefcase that looked worn after a long school year. “With a single mother…”

 _His father died,_ I remembered, and nodded my head knowingly without looking him straight in the eyes.

“I had to make due with what I could. When I went to Queenstown University I lived on nothing but kraft dinner.”

“I love that stuff!”

“Not if you have it everyday.”

He saw my smile, and then let an equal one slide across his face. We were so in tuned to each other, so in sync that we hardly needed words to communicate to each other.

Mr. Baelish leaned off the table and led the way out of the room, making sure to turn off the classroom lights once I was out of the room for good. He fished for his keys inside his trouser pocket, and I felt a sickening feeling knowing this was the last time. _How many times have I dreamed of this place,_ I wondered, _memorizing the exact layout of this hall so I could come here in my dreams._

 _But the door was always locked,_ I remembered, as I watched my economics teacher firmly lock the classroom door and pull down the handle to make sure it was secure for the night. “All I am trying to say,” he continued. “Is sometimes you have to make sacrifices to get the things that you want. I know you are happy to be accepted into college, but is that what you really want?”

“Its too late now to change my mind,” I gibed. “I already got in.”

“Its not set in stone, Sansa.”

“All of my friends will be going somewhere and…”

He looked on the right side of his shoulder to catch a glimpse of my profile. “And you want to go somewhere too,” he knowingly answered. Mr. Baelish readjusted his light spring jacket as we walked down the hallway side by side together; our foots in sync, our gait the same rhythm that you would think we were one in the same. “And you can.”

“What will my mother think?”

“You care too much….” He paused, realizing the words he was about to say. “You can’t let someone live your life, Sansa.”

“I just want to do the right thing,” I entreated. “I want to move out and have a place of my own. A nice job that is secure, is it so bad to want these things?”

“I thought you wanted to be a photographer.”

“Yeah, until I realized I’m not good.”

“It takes practice,” he reminded me, before we turned the left corner that would take us to another set of staircase to the liberal arts department. “And you’re good.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, really! Do you remember the photos you showed me that would be entered into that photo gallery down town.”

“Yeah.”

“And you are a good writer too. Maybe you can find a job that applies both.”

“Yeah, you have a point,” I mused aloud, wishing he had told me this months ago. “But it won’t pay the bills.”

“You don’t know that,” he insisted, and positioned himself in front of me to stress his point.

“You can’t go through life not doing something because you think it won’t pay the bills.”

“You know about my dad,” I reminded him. It was his turn to nod his head this time, it was so easy for him to understand. Mr. Baelish knew everything about me, and there was hardly an aspect of my teenage life that he didn’t know. “I don’t want to be like him,” I moaned low under my voice. “I don’t want the life he has…”

The life of coming home to no groceries and wondering why a man knocks on the door to turn off our electricity, because someone wasn’t able to pay the bills. A life of unpredictability because a profession in the arts was one where you can have a job for one month and then find yourself unemployed in another.

“Then the only way to do that is to have a proper education,” he surmised.

“Education is the best investment,” I stated in a clear tone of voice. “You told me that.”

“I did?” he questioned, after I maneuvered myself around him to walk down the school hallway again.

“After I told you about the stocks I was given at work. You never did help me, you know?”

“Stocks are unpredictable.”

“I thought you liked that.”

“I did, but being an economics teacher you start to see the faults in everything.” He was walking close beside me now, obviously in a good humour to have our familiar sort of conversations again. “And education is your best investment.”

“That’s why you’re a teacher.”

“Yes,” he drawled, with lines indenting the sides of his face with pleasure. “And I have the added pleasure of having you as a student.”

“You know I didn’t like you when we first met.”

“What?” he said with some sarcasm. “Me?”

“You gave detention to one of my best friends, Loras.”

“Oh?”

“For coming to class late.”

“That sounds like me,” he chuckled, even when I cut my eye at him. “But he stopped it.”

“Yeah, and you turned out to be nice.” _More than nice_ , a small voice whispered, _you’re becoming everything to me._

“I’m glad you think that, Sansa,” he said in a leveled voice, before he went ahead to hold the door open for me.

“Such a gentleman,” I complemented, and almost saw a shade of pink blush across his cheek at that statement. _I suppose his behaviour towards me matches his age,_ I mused, _but age isn’t the only thing that stands in the way for how I feel about him._

“And how is Loras?” he inquired, once he took the first step to the long staircase that would take us to the main level of the school.

“I don’t know we don’t really talk anymore. He spends all his time with that teacher, Mr. Ling.” Mr. Baelish raised his eyebrow suspiciously at me, but said nothing. “I feel like this last year of high school I’ve had some sort of separation from my friends.”

“Is that why you spent all those lunch hours with me,” he teased, which made me hold onto the handrail to maintain my composure. “Not that I’m complaining.”

“I like our talks,” I quietly replied, feeling shy with him all of a sudden.

“I like them too, Sansa.”

A tense silence fell in between us, but luckily when we reached the bottom floor a custodian with his cleaning cart was coming our direction. “Hi Paul,” Mr. Baelish yelled out with a friendly wave. He was always like that, taking the time to know everyone who worked at the school from the top to bottom. I had like this personable side about him, making sure everyone in the school felt appreciated. Mr. Baelish shared a few moments of harmless small talk with the elderly man, cracking a few jokes to include the three of us. I noticed how Paul stared at us, finding it odd how companionable Mr. Baelish and I were. We looked more than our stations: teacher and student, it was a line that was blurry and convoluted from the three long years I had known him. “This is Sansa,” he introduced, once it became apparent the custodian was staring at me for far too long. “My student in my grade twelve economics class.” Paul nodded his head stiffly, maybe not liking this young student standing so close to her teacher. “Well, I got to pack up my things and go home so I will see you later,” Mr. Baelish announced, and nearly let his hand rest over my shoulder to steer me forward before he realized what he was doing. He let out a nervous laugh and then led the way, going over the last of the hallway that would take us to his office.

“No one is here,” I observed, surprised at the gloomy silence that fell across the entire school. "Its only been thirty minutes.”

“Everyone wants to go home,” he curtly replied. Mr. Baelish was digging around for his keys for the second time this afternoon, looking slightly tired until he found it in the inner pocket of his spring jacket. “I have to be more organized,” he told himself, and then stretched out his arm to place the key into the door lock. “Suppose to take my sons out for soccer practice tonight.”

“They play soccer?”

“Yeah, Jason and Arthur are pretty good. Its too bad you can’t teach them.”

“I can’t do sports anymore because of my leg,” I sadly reminded him. “Do the rest of your kids do sports?”

“No, but Barbara got them signed up for a bunch of extra-curricular activities. We need a break from the kids sometimes.”

“Cause you are always around them.” Mr. Baelish opened the door and flickered on the lights to find the entire office completely empty. “Wow! Everyone really did leave. I’m kind of happy to be honest, since the teacher’s look at me like ‘Why are you here?’”

“Yes,” he laughed, as he headed towards his desk. “They _do_ that a lot.”

 _They are also probably wondering why the two of us are always together,_ I noted, remembering their lingering stares as the two of us sat in front of his office desk having hushed conversations for long periods of time. It wasn't exactly considered a healthy teacher-student relationship by others, but there is no term for exactly what this relationship was.

“You’re the head of the department, right?”

“Yup,” he quipped with a pen dangling in between his lips while he turned on his archaic looking computer screen.

“Do you like it?”

“Yeah, I like it.”

I wondered if he got paid more than the rest of the teachers, but judging by the simple apparel Mr. Baelish frequently wore it wasn’t a lot. I took a seat next to him, peering at the line of photographs that were taped on the wall behind his computer. He had a large family, five children in all with only a few of them looking like him. He married late in life, falling in love with a woman who already had three children from her previous relationship. It never mattered to him, he eagerly took on the job of becoming a father and over the last three years I knew him he had two children enter the world with the same raven black hair as him.

“You’re quiet,” he observed, as he quickly replied to an email.

“I was looking at your photographs.” I pointed ahead of him, and added, “I didn’t know you had a dog.”

“Theo,” he laughed, but soon there was a dimness to his eyes. “He died.”

“Oh, I’m sorry.”

“Its alright.” He pointed his finger at the same photograph as he added, “We’re on vacation there.”

“You look so young!” Mr. Baelish shot a glance at me, clearly offended at my words. “I mean younger.”

“No greys,” he teased, and rubbed his finger at the side of his temple to show it.

“You’re not that old, you know.”

“I think nearly being fifty makes me old,” he rebutted, while his fingers danced across the keyboard with a certain ease and grace. “But thank you for the compliment.”

“I sometimes feel old…” Mr. Baelish’s fingers froze over the keyboard. “… not in age, but in something else.”

“Yes,” he drawled in a low voice. His large hands dropped away from the keyboard and let it sit on his lap. “I have often thought the same thing.”

“I feel like I should be in my thirties.”

“No, not that old,” he chided, though there was a mischievous glimmer in his eyes.

I tilted the chair in his direction, pushing the wheels across the shiny white floor to position it right next to him. “I do, maybe even older.”

“My age?” he asked in good humour, though there was a certain sadness to it.

“I wish.”

There was a lop-sided smile in my direction, probably having mixed emotions by my honest reply. “Youth is a beautiful thing. Enjoy it while you can.”

 _Would you want me if I was your age,_ I wanted to ask, but I bit down on my tongue to prevent such foolish utterances.

“You have so much to look forward too.”

“I guess.”

“You do,” he entreated, with his forest green eyes diving into mine with strength that left me feeling almost weak.

“I don’t want to leave,” I confessed. “I just want to stay here.”

“At school.”

“I don’t see why I have to graduate.”

“Sansa, you have your whole life ahead of you. This is just one step of many.”

“What if I don’t want to take that step.”

Mr. Baelish looked down at my yearbook that my fingers were currently piercing on either side. He noticed the paleness to my fingertips, the strength of my hand as I tightened the grip with anxiety. “You will do fine. Your intelligent, kind, sweet tempered, and for as long as I know you, you get along with everyone. You’re very personable, Sansa, and kind to everyone.”

“Yeah, but-”

“- I don’t think you realize how special you are,” he suddenly interjected. “I always enjoy you in my classroom.”

“You’re the only reason I took economics this year,” I confided. “Thanks for making me pass.”

“You wouldn’t know you came in for all that extra help.” His face softened substantially, his hand rising into the air until it laid close to mine on the very edge of the desk. “You put in effort, so that’s all that matters.”

I stared down at our hands that were so close together it was almost touching. The space between us was put in place for a reason, a simple glance upwards at his family portraits was a stark reminder of our age and station. I felt him staring at my profile, but when I turned my head in his direction it quickly fell away. “Do you have any plans for the summer?” he asked in a vain effort to break the awkward silence.

“Finding a part-time job.”

“You’ll find one.”

“I don’t know. You forget McDonalds turned me down.”

“You’re too good for them, anyways.”

“Yeah,” I giggled, and felt a sense of sadness as he moved his hand away. “How about you?”

“Taking the kids on a road trip,” he commented, as his fingers lightly tapped down on the keyboard to finish his email. “Want to show them the future universities they are going too.”

“Sounds like fun.”

“Lots!” We broke out in laugher at that moment, with smiles painfully the same as we stared into each other’s eyes. “I’m going to miss you, Sansa.”

“I'm going to miss you too.”

* * *

I recognized her instantly, the same face but only years older. I crouched in front of her wheel chair, staring into those dark forest green eyes with a hint of brown and grey. “You’re Mr. Baelish’s mom,” I relayed in a soft voice, noticing how feeble her hands were as she held onto the thin sheet of kleenex. “I was a student of his.”

She smiled at me, a broad one that cracked the sharp hazardous lines across her grey old face. A woman stood beside her, a relative of some sort that laid her hand over the old woman’s shoulder. “A student,” she exclaimed with a sense of pride. “Look at that, Margaret.”

“I had him for three years,” I told them. “He spoke of you and his siblings often.”

“He did?” cracked the broken hearted woman. The blackness of her clothes could not match the feelings of outliving her own child.

“Quite often,” I told her in truth. “Its because of him I’m going back to school to become a teacher.” The two ladies cooed out in unison, so very pleased that Mr. Baelish managed to inspire someone else to take up that profession. “I am very happy to meet you,” I hushed, and felt a sudden warmth in my heart as Mr. Baelish’s mother reached out to rest her hand on my own.

* * *

“Stark!” Mr. Baelish yelled out, and waited for me to look up from my novel. “You’re not working,” he pointed out, even when the entire classroom was paying attention to our conversation.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Baelish.”

“Always having your head in the books,” he taunted, and laid out his hand for me to place it inside of it. “You’re practically a scholar. I don’t see why you don’t want to go to university.” I was tempted to roll my eyes at him, seeing him in a dark plume sweater with the words 'Queenstown' printed across it in Roman Lettering was about the most outlandish thing he would be wearing this month. "No law textbooks, I see.”

“No,” I answered him, as he rotated the book till he could see the front cover.

“Jane Eyre,” he read aloud, and slightly grimaced which reminded me of the male antagonist I was currently reading about.

“I’m sorry, I will go back to work.”

“Hmph!” He handed me back the small novel but wore a playful smile on his face. I felt a few curious stares from my classmates, probably wondering why our economics teacher always found a way to my desk. I was practically situated next to the door, leagues away from his desk, but Mr. Baelish had often took a little tour around the classroom until he landed in front of mine. “So, what was that about yesterday?”

I raised my eyebrow at him, confused by his abrupt statement. Mr. Baelish was reading the text at the back of my book as he not so patiently waited for my answer.

“I don’t understand.”

He lowered the book and peered at me through his dark rimmed glasses. “You were in my classroom after school with some other teacher.”

“Oh, the driving instructing class!”

“So, you intend to drive? God help us.”

“I’m the worst.” He shot me a wicked grin while he laid the front of the book in the center of my desk. “I get scared the minute I get in the car.”

“Then perhaps you need a better instructor.” I felt the colour of my cheeks rise by the way he was looking at me. “Get back to work, Stark.”

I raised my eyebrows at him as he casually walked away from my desk, and then pressed my hand against the front of the novel in the hopes he had left it as warm as my cheeks had felt.

* * *

I pulled up in front of my best friends house, and immediately felt some alarm when I saw her running down the drive way. “Marg! What is it?”

“Have you been on facebook?”

“No.”

“Insta?”

“No, what is it?”

“Its Mr. Baelish… he’s…” Margaery took a step into my space, eyes widening knowing the next few words would hurt more than I would ever realize. “Sansa, he’s dead.”

“No,” the words escaped me with a hollow feeling. I let my hands fall over the sides of her arm to steady me, feeling a quivering aching feeling in the center of my heart at his words.

“No.”

“It was an accident. I’m so sorry.”

“No,” I cried out in anger. “Margaery, you don’t- you don’t,” I stammered out with feeling.

“You don’t know what he _means_ to me.”

My best friends eyes said it all: _I do._

* * *

My hands trembled with my phone as I walked down the lone silent hallways of the school, finding it odd that it had only been a year since I graduated. It was an hour after school had finished and I snuck in through a side door to make my way into the abandoned staircase. My breathing was laboured as I stalked up the stairs, fearing he wouldn’t be in the school like the last time I was brave enough to visit. The second floor was entirely empty, and I sheepishly walked down the long hallway till I reached the other end of the school. The light was on and his door was open once I finally approached his economic classroom; he leaned over his paper work in complete silence looking the same as ever. I knocked on the door and waited for him to turn his head, a vague recognition came over his face before he stood to his feet. “Stark?”

“Hello, Mr. Baelish.”

I walked over to him, and then ran the rest of the way with my arms opened wide. I enraptured him tightly in my arms, squeezing him so tightly as if I couldn’t believe he was real. “Sansa,” he quietly hushed, and I felt some hesitation as he rubbed his hand over the whole of my back since this was the first time we made any real physical contact. “You came back.”

“I told you I would visit,” I said with utter enthusiasm. “You still look the same.”

“Its been a year,” he quipped, but there was warmth betrayed in his dark green eyes as he looked at me. “You have to tell me everything?”

“Like what?”

“School.”

“Oh, school,” I grumbled. “I hate it.”

“You went to school for law, right?”

I found him slipping out of my arms completely, but he made no real effort to take a step back. “Paralegal,” I corrected him. “Practically the same thing.”

“What don’t you like about it?” he inquired with a look that said _I told you so_.

“The campus is terrible! Getting there on the bus takes over an hour, but if I drove it would take twenty minutes.”

“Where is it again?”

I told him the location, which made a sinister grin come across his face. It school was near a dump, but it offered the lowest tuition fees and its was somewhat close to home.

“And I learned something else,” I told him, as he leaned his hands against the chalkboard behind his back to take a better look at me. “I hate to argue.”

“Really?”

“I just want to keep the peace.”

“You’re too sweet.”

“I am.”

He smiled at me with his eyes retaining the same warmth as before; I found my feet leading towards him until I stood directly in front of him. It was rare for someone to be the same height as me, let alone a little taller. My entire high school career I was known as the pretty red head that was unusually tall and I hated it, but Mr. Baelish had often assured me that there was nothing wrong with my height. I wouldn’t realize the truth until years after I graduated, maybe even more. “You’re sweet and pretty,” he deliberated aloud. “Have you found someone special yet?”

“No,” I snapped with a suddenness that made his eyebrows furrow. _Only because I spent the last year thinking about you._

He puckered his lips, sensing the thoughts that I was too afraid to speak. _He knows,_ I realized, _all this time and he still knows I’m in love with him._

Mr. Baelish cleared his throat uncomfortably. “You’re a nice girl, Sansa, you’ll find someone soon.”

“But that’s just the problem. I’m _too_ nice.”

“And the world will eat you up because of it,” he joked. “But someday someone will value, no- appreciate your kindness.”

“Maybe.”

“They will,” he reaffirmed, and gave me a look to show he was speaking for himself. “And they will _love_ it.”

“Maybe.”

“You are too hard on yourself, Stark,” he gibed, and then leaned himself off the chalkboard to encroach upon my space. “But you will see it one day.”

I shrugged my shoulders, feeling helpless with my present situation. I hated my school, my job, and I was suffering alone with depression for the past few months because of an unrequited love that never could be returned. _He’s right here,_ I reminded myself, and tried to not let my dark thoughts steal me from this present moment.

“You will,” he repeated in a hush voice, with his chest nearly pressing against mine. “And then you’ll remember what I said.”

_No, but I will remember this moment for as long as I live._

Duty stood in the way, or maybe honour, or that stupid moral compass, but Mr. Baelish took a step back and then let his trembling hand reach for the chalk board eraser to clean up his harsh scrawls across the dusty black board. “Anything else interesting?” he asked to distract himself, since he could read my unuttered thoughts.

I had found we had a certain way of communicating by the time I reached grade twelve, often sharing in secret smiles or secret glances that could speak more than a string of sentences piled up together. It had developed naturally, and maybe that was when I first started to discover I saw Mr. Baelish more than a mentor or a friend, but something more.

“I’m still at that coffee shop,” I complained. “But you can visit me anytime.”

“The same one down the street,” he said with his back to me, with a nervous tremor to his voice.

“Yeah, the same.”

“Alright, one day I will. But you know I don’t drink coffee.”

“I know.”

“How’s those stocks treating you. Its one of those benefits, right?”

“I don’t know. I have to check.”

“Guess you weren’t interested after all.”

“You know I’m no good with numbers,” I complained, as I rounded myself beside him to catch a glimpse of his face. Mr. Baelish seemed determined to not look at me, however, and kept his eyes on the large print that stretched across the board. “And math.”

“Yes,” he chuckled with the remembrance of it. “How could I forget that!”

I picked up another chalkboard eraser and rubbed it along side of him, matching his own strenuous efforts till his board was completely clean. “The job sucks, but its paying for school. I don’t need any school loans and once I graduate I will be debt free.”

“Oh, wow! Most people don’t have that opportunity.”

“Yeah, and I don’t live on kraft dinner.”

He shot me a look before he sauntered over to the back sink, and soaked a yellow cloth under the tap to soak it in water. “And how’s your mom?”

“Still the same,” I said with some resentment.

“Have you told her how you feel?”

He came towards me with a dripping wet cloth as I surmised, “She simply ignores it. They want me out the house and take on a full-time job. The same speech everyone gets, I guess.”

“You are only 19 years old,” he shot back. “You have enough time to get on with the rest of your life.”

“My parents got married and had me by twenty-two, so I am actually behind their standards.”

“Did they go to school?”

“No.”

“This is a different generation,” he remonstrated. “It is your generation that will be highly educated.” The sound of water splashing across the long chalkboard could be heard, and I watched his long, strong arm stretch above his head to wipe at the very top of his board.

“They can’t compare their lives with yours!”

“But they do.”

“Then don’t let them,” he argued back in a strange husky voice. It was clear he was angry, as he lowered the cloth to the center of his waist. “This your life, and its yours to live! Don’t let anyone hold you back form what you are meant to do.”

“But that’s just it!” I cried out. “I don’t know what to do.”

“It will come.” He raised his hand to the chalkboard again, and silently scrubbed at the board until it was starting to look pristine. “You know I didn’t want to be a teacher until my late twenties. It took me a long time to figure out what I wanted to do with my life, and then it suddenly came to me. I had mentors, and people to look up too. I guess… that’s the best way to start,” he said with his back to me. I felt this strange desire to walk up behind him and wrap my arms around his chest, burying my head into his spine with my nose inhaling his familiar scent of fresh eucalyptus mint. “Who do you look up too?”

“You,” I said without hesitation.

He stopped his movements, and looked over his shoulder with a proud look about him.

“Really?”

“Of course.”

“Sansa, I…” He dropped the cloth down to the silver stand at the bottom of the chalkboard and wiped his damp hands down the sides of his trousers. “You’re not just saying that.”

“You were like a father to me,” I said in truth. “You were there for me when I needed you most.”

“You have a father,” he breathed, somewhat conflicted by my answer.

“No.” I took a step forward with purpose, desiring to be as close to him as possible. “In the last few years my father distanced himself from me, but you…” I swallowed hard, hoping not to say anything I would regret. “You gave me advice time after time. You were there to hear my problems, my hopes, and dreams. It was you I sought out, not him- no one else but…”

He batted his eyelids at me, sensing I was teetering on the edge of something new. I had found I had loved him for more than a year now, but there was something else steering inside of me now as well. _I always was a late bloomer._

“I appreciate your honesty,” he uttered into the tense silence.

“I just feel like you know me more than anyone else.” _As if were soulmates, so in tune it scares me half to death._

“Is that what you really think?” he asked with disbelief, trying to lighten this serious subject matter because we both knew where it would ultimately lead.

“I’ve never felt so close to anyone before.”

“There is something…” Mr. Baelish puckered his lips, feeling the need to be careful with his words. “… _special_ about you.”

“And you,” I maintained. “Its weird, but… I like it.”

He rubbed his hands together, feeling nervous with the honesty of our conversation. He doesn’t want to admit what we truly are to one another. There was a nervous flicker to his eyes to the open doorway, probably fearing there was someone listening to our conversation. _There is more than his job at stake,_ I remembered, _he has a family of his own and a wife._

“Out of all the student’s I’ve had,” He began. “Our relationship is truly unique.”

“I never had this with a teacher before,” I agreed. “Never went out and bought a Christmas present for them and their family,” I joked, which made him smile at the remembrance of two large boxes of mint chocolates I pulled out of my knapsack when the rest of the students had left his classroom for the winter holidays all wrapped in a cheery red wrapping with gigantic bows on top. “Or write Christmas cards.”

“Which we appreciated.”

“Its cause I’m a nice girl.”

“You are,” he sweetly replied, but I felt a part of him wish I wasn’t so nice and proper. If I wasn’t I might have fully taken advantage of us being in the classroom alone. I closed my legs in more together and immediately sucked in my cheeks at the thought. My eyes faltered towards the ground, half embarrassed by my thoughts that were steadily creeping across my mind. “I hope that never changes.”

“No?”

“We need more people like you,” he maintained with a resolute gaze. “ _I_ need more people like you,” Mr. Baelish corrected with a sternness to his voice.

“I’m not planning to go anywhere,” I promised, which left a broad smile across the whole of his face that matched the glimmer to his grey-green eyes.

* * *

My mother was leaning over my computer desk in my bedroom, still engaged in her one-side conversation about her long day at work. She needed to vent, and I wasn’t the one to stop her anytime soon. She stopped mid-sentence and pointed at the photograph at the white board on my desk. “Is that Mr. Baelish?” she suddenly asked, and pointed at the small photograph I kept in view for only myself.

I turned my head to see the dates printed beneath his photograph, the same sheet I received at his funeral on that fateful date. _Petyr,_ I read inside my head, it only took me four years to figure out what that P. Baelish stands for. “Yeah,” I softly replied, and pretended that the notes for my homework was more interesting.

“You don’t talk about him that much anymore,” she observed, and wondered if this was a cause for concern.

“I still think about him.”

She rubbed the top of my head, stroking the soft auburn coloured hair that I wore loosely down my shoulders. “My poor daughter,” she mumbled, knowing how much I truly cared about my former high school teacher. “I know you still miss him.”

I clenched my jaw, hoping she would drop the conversation before I started to be filled with grief again. “You used to talk about him everyday,” she recalled aloud. “I was starting to get worried.”

“About?”

“But you said he was married, so I stopped worrying.”

“About?”

“All those things you read in the news-”

“-he isn’t like that,” I interjected.

“I know,” she maintained, sensing how sensitive the subject matter was for me. “But you said you would talk to him during lunch hours and after school and I just thought…”

“No, there was nothing going on.”

“You’re a good girl, Sansa, I know you wouldn’t do anything.”

 _Not then,_ I contemplated, but if the opportunity arose now it would have been very different. I would have locked the door and begged him to take me on his desk, hands feverishly pulling at that smooth ironed shirt till it crumpled and dropped to the floor. I’d be crying out his name while his cock found his home inside of me, feeling like the last of that fateful bond being complete the moment he entered himself into me. I would have told him how much I loved him, not with looks or actions but with words.

 _He would have said it back,_ I knew, it was in his eyes.

“Wouldn’t you?” my mother asked, as she let her hand slip away from the last stray curl down the middle of my back.

“You already know the answer to that,” I bitterly replied.

“I just wish you could find someone your age,” she maintained. “But you seem to like men that are significantly older than you.”

“Which scares you.”

“It does scare me,” she admitted. “When I met your father he was a friend, and then it became something more. I’m just saying you will meet someone in school.”

“No,” I woodenly replied. “I won’t meet anyone like him.”

“I’m not saying-”

“I just want to get back to work,” I interrupted, and lifted up the newly bought textbook for my first year of undergrad. “I have an exam to study for.”

“Of course, love.” She leaned in to kiss the side of my temple. “I just want what’s best for you.”

* * *

The espresso machine needed a deep cleaning, so I took out a bottle and sprayed the front surface to sanitize the area. The store was quiet for a Monday morning, and most of my co-workers were next to the pastry case snacking on some new sample’s the company introduced. I was content being alone, lost in my own musings for the time being until the lunch rush would arrive. A few teenagers walked through the front doors and I greeted them amiably, finding anyone under the age of sixteen had attracted my interest lately. It had been this way over the past year, the year I decided I was going to get out of this lost life of mine and go back to school to become a teacher. Life had become brighter, a glimmer of hope in a long stretch of darkness ever since I graduated high school some four years ago.

The teenage boys were doing their best to flirt at me, despite Natalie at the register trying to ask them for their order. I ignored them the best I could while I rubbed the surface of the espresso machine, making the silver shine in the soft lighting of the coffee shop until I was satisfied. I was just washing my hands in the sink to make the drinks when I felt a gust of wind blow against my side. I looked up to greet the customer, knowing the cold breeze meant the front door had just been open. I stopped and froze at the sight of him, catching those bright green eyes almost smiling at me from the other side of the countertop. I dropped everything, running past the lines of cups and my manager on the floor to get to the exit way on the far end of the room. Brushing through the throng of customers I forced myself to the front desk until I stood directly in front of Mr. Baelish.

“Hello, Sansa,” he almost hushed, and was quickly cut off guard when I jumped into his arms for a hug. He strengthened his hug, holding me longer than it would be socially acceptable, and with some reluctance he let me go. “What are you doing here?”

“I work here,” I scolded, while I still maintained my grip around him.

“Do you?”

“Don’t- even,” I warned, and when I finally let him go I noticed both my hands were trembling.

“I remember you told me you worked at this coffee shop but I never imagined you… well…”

 _That I would still be working here,_ I knew, _and felt somewhat ashamed by the truth of it._

“How have you been?” he asked with both of his hands resting on top of my shoulder.

“I’m going back to school!”

“What?”

“Got accepted into Queenstown University.”

“The same as mine,” he voiced aloud with amazement. He pulled me into a deeper hug as he happily expressed his congratulations. “What for?”

“English and Political Science. I want to be a teacher.”

“So, you read my message in your yearbook after all.”

“Yeah, it just took me a while to warm up to the idea.”

“A long while,” he laughed, and then laid his hand over my cheek. I hitched my breath as he stroked his thumb across my pale cheek, letting his eyes dive into my eyes for a moment.

“You’ll be an amazing one.”

“Thank you, Baelish.” He nodded his head, looking as if he wished me to call him something else. “I would volunteer at your school but I work so much.”

“Maybe next year.”

“I’ll be in university then, but I will make sure to have a day off to work with you.”

He tilted his head and let a smile grace his lips. “I look forward to it,” he said in a raspy voice, and let his thumb slightly dig into the plumpness of my cheek. “I can teach you a lot.”

“I know,” I said in a slightly seductive voice, unaware of the darkening gathering around my center orbs. Mr. Baelish smirked at me, clearly sensing where my thoughts were turning too. “And what made you make this decision, if you don’t mind me asking?”

“Your note in my yearbook,” I confessed. “And it just came to me one day,” I lied, not wanting to tell him that it was a movie that inspired me to take up this profession. “But how did you know all this time, that I should be a teacher?”

“Because I know you, more than anyone.” He thumb dug deeper into my cheek while he maintained that ardent gaze. “You’ll do wonderful, Sansa.”

“You’ll visit me, won’t you?” I pleaded. “Now, that you know where I work.”

“I’ll visit you.”

“And- and,” I stammered out, when he inclined his face closer to my own. “I will come visit you at school… after hours.”

“I’d like that.”

“Okay?” I nervously asked, feeling the heat of his stare was making me lose my train of thought. I heard my name being called out behind me, and apparently my manager didn’t like the way this older man was holding me. I sighed softly, hardly realizing his thumb had somehow traveled just over my lips and took the heat of it gratefully. “I should get back.”

“That’s alright I have an order to make.”

“For work?”

“No, stuff for the kids.”

“Oh,” I stammered out, realizing his entire family might be waiting in the car in the parking lot.

“What do you recommend?”

“I like the lemon loaf.”

“Sounds sweet enough,” he teased, as he followed me to the other side of the coffee shop were the long line was eyeing me with resentment. “It’s a favourite of yours?”

“Yeah, I love it.”

“Then I’ll love it,” he quipped, before he purposefully brushed the back of his hand against mine. “You’re looking prettier than ever, Sansa.”

“I’m in these grubby work clothes.”

“No, still pretty,” he remarked, as he rubbed this new goatee he was currently sporting. It went well with his long black cloak and dark trousers that made him look more mysterious than ever. “But you always were. I just couldn’t tell you that when you were my student for obvious reasons.”

“You would get arrested,” I taunted. “See you in some local newspaper.”

“Something like that.”

“I recall you saying you liked the shade of my hair.”

“Its very beautiful,” he deliberated aloud, and unconsciously stroked a stray hair closest to him, and then let it wrap around his ring finger. I caught the silver wedding band and felt like a knife stabbed me in my pit of my heart. “Never seen anything quite like it.”

“My mother says its rare.”

“And how did your mother take the news? You going back to school and all.”

“She hated it, but not as much as my father. I expected to be in a great deal of debt by the time my academic career is done.”

“You’ll pay it off.”

“Maybe I need to find someone rich.”

“Hmph.”

“I like the older guys, so maybe that will help.”

“Older ones, eh?”

“Forty is preferable.”

“Your twenty.”

"Twenty-three,” I corrected. “Besides, age is just a number.”

“And yet, you are willing to be a gold digger!” he shot back too loudly, since I was on the other side of the countertop by now. The customers gave him a look, but he was too focused on our conversation to notice it. “Age means nothing, yes, but you have to respect your partner. Love them! You are too beautiful and to smart to simply throw your life away.”

_Why not? You would never take me._

“Sansa,” he entreated, after he noticed the look I wore as I walked away from him. I positioned myself in front of the espresso machine, forcing our conversation to end for the time being. I could feel his stare, but ignored it, finally taking up the offer to flirt back with the teenage boys that were into me earlier. _Let him get upset,_ I thought, but the boys lost interest after they saw my intimate interaction with a significantly older man. I made sure to give them all decaf espresso in spitefulness, and was in a miserable mood before I heard my former high school teacher call out my name. “What should I drink?”

“You hate coffee.”

“Exactly.”

“What teacher hates coffee anyways.”

“Sansa,” he grunted, clearly not having the time of day for my temper tantrum. “A little help please.”

“What about your kids?”

“The loafs are expensive enough,” he pointed out, and lifted the heavy bag that contained enough lemon loafs to satisfy his children. “And I’m the only one thirsty.”

“What about tea?”

“Okay.”

“Hot or cold.”

“Its pretty warm outside, but I want something hot for the drive.”

I took one long look at him and from the corner of my mouth I said, “Give him mint tea.”

Mr. Baelish chuckled at my order, and made sure to linger in front of the espresso machine as one of my co-workers fetched his drink. “You know me well.”

“Too well.”

“I miss having you around, Sansa.”

“Well, you know where to find me.”

There was a darkness to his features when he cooed, “I do.” I spilled a cup with a single shot of espresso across the countertop, and timidly wiped it up while I avoided his heated stare. “It’s a pity.”

“What is?”

He waited for my nervous eyes to reach his own, and ignored the calls out for a mint tea when he answered, “That we aren’t the same age.”

“Or you being married,” I hushed, after I dropped my eyes down to the countertop.

“Yes.” I flickered my eyes upwards, caught off guard by his confession. He puckered his lips slightly, while he retained that heated resolute stare. “But you know how it is.”

I ignored that last comment, and turned my back to him to pour out a smoothie from one of the blenders. When I turned around he was gone, but he soon returned with a sleeve and cap for his piping hot beverage he was currently holding in his hand. “Its been years and I haven’t met anyone like you,” I told him with a hidden encryption that only he could decipher. “Maybe you were wrong. What if there is no one out there for me…”

 _But you,_ I thought, but kept that last part to myself.

“You’re young,” he reminded me, but his answer sounded weak. “Sometimes people are put into our lives for a reason, so maybe you were put into mine…” he used his free hand to point to his chest. “… or maybe you I was put into yours for a reason.”

“It goes both ways.”

“You are very special to me, Sansa,” he entreated with a severity to his voice. “More than you will ever realize.”

A gust of breeze blew against us, and a little boy poked his head through yelling out, “Daddy!”

“Arthur, where is your mother?” he asked with worry, and left his mint of tea on the ledge in front of me to retrieve his child. “Did you walk here alone?”

“No, she’s coming.”

“You don’t walk around alone,” he reprimanded. “Did you run?”

“Yes.”

He was holding his hand as he gently led him back to the ledge where he was standing only moments ago. “What did I tell you about running?”

The boy’s voice squeaked as he answered, “It isn’t safe.”

“You know I would go crazy if something happened to you.” The boy was probably five years old, but Mr. Baelish lifted him into his arms until the cute dark haired boy looked at me with curiosity. “This here’s Sansa,” he introduced, and smiled when the child waved his hand at me. “She was one of my students,’ he explained. “And now she is becoming a teacher too. I’m very proud of her.”

“You are?”

“Very!”

“Arthur,” I sweetly rapped out. “Your dad bought you some treats.”

“Lemon,” the dark haired man said with excitement, and poked the child’s cheek until he laughed in front of his face. “You like lemon, don’t you?”

“No,” the boy spat out.

“Well, you’ll like it now,” he teased. His good humour stopped once he heard his son's name being called out by another, and soon his wife and four children came into the coffee shop sporting beach apparel with sunscreen and hats in their little hands. “What happened to Arthur?”

“He ran,” his wife berated, and instantly took the child from his arms. “Even after we told him to stop.”

“Looks like Arthur isn’t going to have fun at the beach today,” the little boy’s father warned. I couldn’t help but smile at the display, but feel resentment at the small middle-aged woman that was undoubtedly pretty. _If only she knew how long I had resented her for finding him first._

“Sansa,” was called out, and I realized Mr. Baelish had been calling out my name for some time. “You finally get to meet my wife.” He looked somewhat conflicted by this observation, but covered it well as he made a formal introduction. This blonde-haired woman looked at me with her dark almond coloured eyes, oblivious to the feelings I had been harbouring against her for years. I should have felt guilty about the daydreams I had been having for the past year, ones that would make the poor woman blush profusely- I didn’t.

The mother of five children was civil and kind, but obviously eager to return to the car and start their day at the beach. Mr. Baelish’s children were of the same kind of manner, and pretty soon they were holding their father’s arm and long black spring coat as they pulled at him with a fit of giggles. “Sansa, I’ll see you soon,” he promised in front of his wife, and lifted up his cup to show he meant his word. I waved him a small goodbye, still aware of the trembling in my hands that came upon me the moment I felt his arms around me. He was out of the door in a blink of an eye, and all I could see was their dark silhouettes on the other side of the glass as they made their way down the sidewalk.

  
_I’ll see you soon,_ echoed in the back of my mind. I never did see him again. He died a week later a few streets from his house; killed by a reckless drunk driver in the middle of the day.

He will be missed by all.

**Author's Note:**

> I still maintain a relationship with the teacher's wife, and visit her annually. I am also in my first year of teacher's college and no longer work at that dreaded coffee shop. I make good money coaching sports with kids, and I love doing what I do. On a side note, I stopped being a people pleaser (aka being too nice) and I am determined to finish teacher's college in spite of my parents resentment that I am still in school. My life has purpose, and I am thankful for the moments I had with that special teacher.... and that he visited me at my place of work a few weeks before he died (It was odd that it felt like a final goodbye at that moment too). 
> 
> Special thanks for reading this fic
> 
> \- petyrbaaaeeelish


End file.
